


The First Time Ever I Saw

by raedbard



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-19
Updated: 2008-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/pseuds/raedbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A variety of Sam and Toby's 'first' kisses, seen by various people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Time Ever I Saw

**Author's Note:**

> for quirkytaverna in the first kisses meme

_Molly&amp;Huck, three years after_

This is what Molly and Huck remember: peeking around the door of their room, seven years old, Molly has the giggles and Huck is trying not to get caught up in her whirlwind, but the tiny squeaks of sound escaping from behind her hand are beginning to twitch at his mouth. He pushes against her arm with his fist, and hisses _shutup!_ but that only makes her gasp, trying to steal a breath out of the crowded air. It's snowing outside, New York is all-over white, and Sam is here. For Hanukkah Daddy says, even though he also says that Sam is Catholic and Sam says he's not with a big sigh and they get into the same old fight they have every time, always straight-faced, never smiling, except in the twinkle of their eyes.

Sam read them a story tonight. Molly had demanded _something grown-up!_ loud enough to crack the windows and let the snow in out of the night. Huck had shrugged, _whatever_. Sam had looked at him for a second, then looked down at his hands, then up at Huck again. And Huck can't tell what Sam is thinking, except that something in his heart has cracked open, letting in the snow. Huck balled his fists in the bedsheets and muttered _whatever you think is good_. And when Sam smiled, Huck caught himself wondering if it was dawn already.

Three Ray Bradbury stories later, when he thinks they're asleep, Sam slips out of the room. He doesn't close the door all the way. Molly hisses at Huck, _watch!_ and through the gap in the door, this is the kiss they remember:

Daddy in the light, Sam in the shadows. Daddy's hand slipping down over Sam's arm, catching in the turn-up in his shirt-sleeve. Words are murmured that they can't hear, Sam laughs without a sound. Then words they do hear - Daddy's voice like low thunder: _where do you think you're going?_; Sam's shrug and the way he opens his mouth to reply, but doesn't get that far. Molly isn't giggling anymore; Huck isn't trying to be solemn.

Sam's hands are touching Daddy's collar, really gentle; and Daddy's hand is holding Sam's, really sweet. Huck looks round at Molly, and grins. Then they pretend to go to sleep.

*

_Ginger, first year of the Santos Administration_

This is what Ginger remembers: the first days of the Santos Administration, coming back into the only place she ever worked that she never wanted to leave, because Sam had asked for her. Over the phone he said that he wanted a familiar face, someone he knew he could trust with anything, but Ginger doesn't think that's really it - there's Josh and Donna; he isn't on his own. Ginger thinks maybe there's more to it than Sam wants to say, something strained about his tone, and the gaps he never used to leave between his words. Something missing, that she will not be able to replace, only to bounce back the echo into Sam's mouth. She thinks she knows what that is, the echo, what dark atonal music it has been making in Sam's life all these missing years, but she isn't sure until a night in February, late, quiet, everyone finishing up early, except the two of them.

Sam leaves first. He tells her to _go home, you've gone above and beyond the call today_ and she smiles and nods and continues with her work that won't be any less in the morning, however much sleep she wrestles back from the evening.

By the main gate, just ahead: she hears them before she realises who she hears. Sam is laughing and trying to be quiet, and she realises she doesn't hear him laugh very often; that she never really did. The other voice is low and spare, saying something that sounds sarcastic, and it takes her a moment, just a little moment, to recognise it. If she stands _just here_ they can't see her, and they think they are hidden by the trees. She feels _something_ curl up inside her, half sad and half not, as they each take a step towards each other.

The kiss Ginger remembers is less easy than it should be; intimacy fractured by time and distance; hands that have forgotten the texture of hair and the shape of shoulders. But in the dark she hears the echo deepen, and disappear. There is no need for it now.

*

_Josh, the night of the second election win_

This is what Josh remembers: coming back towards the Bullpen, desks draped with streamers, balloons huddling at the corners of the ceiling, the susurrus of of voices over the other side of the building - CJ's pealing laugh, Leo's rumble. Josh remembers smiling - finding the world perfect, if only for tonight. _Four more years_. Then turning into the Bullpen: two figures, one black, one white; one within the shadows of the office, one caught in the doorway with a light blazing down on his back and his hand curled around the doorjamb, knuckles white. Two figures, silent. Toby has his right hand on Sam's shoulder and his left on Sam's cheek, not like a brother. Sam leans forward, desperate, the line of his body vulnerable; seeking. Josh doesn't understand what it is he is looking for until Toby moves to meet him.

The kiss Josh remembers has _goodbye_ written over it in red ink; on Toby's fingers and at the closing of Sam's eyes. A stain: _leaving you're leaving me I don't want to go leave leaving don't leave me_ over and over.

Josh blinks once, twice, and turns away his head.

*

_Charlie, eight days after the first MS confession_

This is what Charlie remembers: quiet days, full of whispering, full of secret-keeping. He tries smiling, on the one or two occasions during the week that it seems remotely appropriate. It doesn't help. Leo pads around him, lion-like, steps that he doesn't hear coming through towards his desk. He tries really hard not to be offended by the watchfulness in Leo's eyes; he knows why, he understands. But it still stings.

He knows which of them have been told and which are still in the sun. There is a tension in the line of their backs - first Toby, then Josh, then CJ. Charlie imagines it spreading like a dark wave through the rest of them, turning them all to stone.

He's not there when Sam comes out of the Oval Office, but he hears the click of the door as he walks, silent as a cat, back towards his desk. It's a sound he hears louder than all the others; he's always had a line of shining-steel tension running through his back. He goes the long way round, just this once, just because he needs to look, just for a minute, at something which isn't the paperwork on his desk. And so it's Sam he ends up seeing - still straight, proud, but strange ... stiff, as though he is holding the broken pieces of himself together with only the force of his will. Charlie stares, standing perfectly still, then slips to the side.

Through the window of the Bullpen, this is the kiss Charlie remembers: Sam's hand brushes against the wood of Toby's office door; not a knock - Charlie can't hear any sound, nothing even muffled, only silence. Toby looks up from something Charlie thinks he was only pretending to read. His face is sombre, all greys and blacks and no colour but the red of his lips. Sam stands in the door a long time; Charlie doesn't think he speaks. Toby does though, standing up so quickly that Charlie loses him in the space of one blink, slipping around the desk and filling the air between himself and Sam with soft words that billow like clouds inside the movement of his hands. Sam turns away, a thunderstorm in his face; Toby lays a hand on his shoulder, gentle and steady, trying to earth with the tenderness of the gesture the electricity crackling through Sam's body. It doesn't work.

Sam turns back, furious, drawn in white, blinding. He strikes Toby's arm with his outstretched hand, knocks it away. Toby remains still, staring, unmoved. There is a promise becoming unhidden in his face; Charlie thinks that is the only thing that keeps Sam from hitting him again. Sam doesn't hang his head. He stays proud and angry all the time that Toby's mouth is pressed against his, nothing of Toby's darkness colouring Sam's light; no greys. It's when they break that the change comes, slowly, slipping through Sam's body like the melting of the frost.

Toby strokes Sam's face, his own inscrutable; Sam smiles, grudgingly at first, then less so, turning his head closer to Toby's hand. Charlie finds he can move again.

*

_Toby&amp;Sam, on the campaign trail_

This is what Toby and Sam remember: a campaign bus in October, cold hard enough to snap their fingers, a discussion of the Kennedy doctrine that lead to a fight CJ had to break up by threatening to knock their heads together, a walk outside to watch their breath curl in the night air, the taste of cigar smoke that calms one and chokes the other, having known each other a few months at best - still judging and learning and feeling their way around the shape of this thing they don't yet understand.

They don't walk far, just enough to be invisible from the bus windows, in the darkness. Toby puts out his cigar, twists it into the earth. Sam watches him for the time it takes him to breathe out three thin trails of air. Sam is falling in love with the resonance of half-written speeches in Toby's chest, the vibration of thought and perfectionism, the muffled idealism, the heart he believes (and always will believe) is better than its owner will admit. Toby can't find any nouns or adjectives he thinks are appropriate to the persistent pull he feels towards Sam; he tries to think only in verbs: _want_, _claim_, _keep_. But for this most confusing thing, he misses the nuance; needs it. He doesn't understand.

Sam turns away first. He takes a few more steps into the night. Toby can see the patterns of his breath, still there, still pale - a trail that leads god knows where. Toby follows. Sam's steps crunch through the frost-covered leaves, then halt. Toby almost runs right into him, takes a step back, tries to look affronted, is almost sure Sam can't tell.

_Toby?_   
_Sam._

Sam puts out his hand and rests it against Toby's chest. Through jacket lapel, shirt, undershirt, Toby feels the warmth of Sam's palm. The earth does not quake, there is no lightning. Sam shifts closer; Toby doesn't move away. Sam's breathing sounds shallow - the pattern has changed, more erratic now, as though something important is happening. Toby realises that he can hear his own heartbeat loud in his ears. Then Sam's mouth on his: cold lips, fast breaths, and a rapacity in his kisses that Toby could never have anticipated. He raises his hands to Sam's face, holds him steady.

Sam realises too late that he is breathless, light-headed, that the cold air is in his lungs now, burning. He doesn't stumble, or that's what he tells himself afterwards, just seeks for warmth in the nearest place - against Toby's chest. He doesn't expect ... anything. He expects to be pushed away, to be hit in the face. He gets Toby's tentative hands in his hair. Toby holds him, gently at first, then harder, arms wrapped around Sam's ribs, squeezing, like Sam is something he has to keep safe.

Sam pulls away; Toby stares.

_Sorry.  
Don't be.  
Listen, I know ... your wife --  
Don't be sorry, Sam.  
I ... I ... I don't know.  
Yeah. Me either. Let's go back to the bus.  
Toby --   
Let's go back to the bus, Sam.  
... Okay.  
Okay._


End file.
